The Lost Bladesman

I really cannot praise it enough. It is probably the best Chinese film I have seen in years, and easily one of the best period films I have seen. Of Donnie's recent films, I really cannot find a comparison, this is truly stellar. Wen Jiang is so amazingly charismatic as Cao Cao. I couldn't help but be engaged whenever he was on screen, he is probably my current favorite actor, including Hollywood. He may be the best actor in the World currently. Betty Sun is very enjoyable in her role, and added another level of depth to the story.

From the opening, I knew I was in for something special. The soundtrack, the cinematography, the acting, just excellent.

In short, if you enjoy Asian Cinema to any degree, this film will be nothing but a delight.

A partial tale of perhaps the most famous warrior in Chinese history, Guan Yu.

To me, Donnie Yen was a miscast as Guan Yu. He just doesn't have the physical appearance that you'd expect Guan Yu to be (which he had in abundance when he played Yip Man). But there is no one, I mean no one in current Chinese movie actors inventory who can pull this role off. Other movies that portrays the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, cleverly avoids putting any of the monstrously powerful warriors from this story on screen (or relegates them to relatively insignificant role in the story that don't require them to showcase their terrific might). Maybe if they can find equivalent of Chris Hemsworth when they made the movie "Thor", movies portraying the heroes of this story will succeed.

The movie just didn't have it. It lacked the juice that story of Guan Yu has in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. His enemies were all pathetic shrimps too. There was no big battle scenes where Guan Yu would dispatch the most ferocious warriors the enemy can call to bear on him. Supporting characters, lacked the flare that the characters in the original story has. Also, why the movie chose this particular segment of Guan Yu's career to be put on screen is a mystery. It was one of the flattest part of his story.

Maybe it'll take a CG to produce a character that would even remotely resemble Guan Yu, and the other heroes of this story.

A dud, and just doesn't do any justice to the magnificent lore of Guan Yu.

The movie underperformed at the local box-office at the time of its' initial release. The main factor for its' "failure" was Donnie Yen -- standing at 5' 8" -- portraying a real-life soldier and war general that was bigger and supposedly much taller (more than 6'). But since there's no proof of Guan Yu's height and size, there's only alot you can do to imagine the historical figure's appearance that would come close to the facts.

Directing duo Alan Mak and Felix Chong does something that no other filmmaker would dare doing: Doing their own interpretation of Guan Yu without any myths surrounding his worship-like and over-the-top/exaggerated status, and sticking to the roots as realistically as possible. For that, I think they did a great job creating a totally humanizing version of Guan Yu and Donnie Yen making the character relatable to pretty much anyone situated on historical and modern battlefields. Donnie himself gets to showcase his acting skills once again, and his performance deserves applauds for not going his own route of method acting but actually immersing himself into the character without flaws apart from the dialogue being dubbed in Mandarin, which affects his overall acting (Donnie's a native Cantonese speaker) a bit. However, Jiang Wen as Cao Cao is the movie's true standout with his strong charisma and very impressive acting.

Moving on to the action scenes... It's freaking great! Truly inspirational and undoubtedly the best fight scenes of its' type (Chinese weaponry in warring scenarios) in a very long time. Donnie has said many times that he's setting a goal to break new grounds in action choreography for each production and this is what he's providing us with here as well: Originality and lots of guts breaking away from conventions. Donnie continues to learn new tricks and improving as an action director, and this movie shows it despite being released over 10 years ago.

If you are admirer of the Romance of The Three Kingdoms, it is a must see. If you are fan of martial arts, it is a must see, too. If you have the nostalgia about Three Kingdoms series, it is , off course, a must see. But, more important, it is a correct version , in each detail , of the story of Guan Yu . And that defines it, near the performance of Donnie Yen , as a nice option for a not remarcable but surrely good film.

--This is the only thing I don't like about foreign films, is the cruelty to animals that some of them have, at At 44:49 they clearly bust the legs of a horse. This disappointed me as I was trying to get into it, finally found a martial arts movie with out people flying around. --I wish I could post something good, but the horse thing blinds me to any merits the movie may or may not have.

The subtitles are done well, costumes look good, the gals are youngish.

I just wish movies like these with killing animals in this fashion were censored or something, its not the first time i've seen modern foreign films with this kind of footage, my take is its a lot cheaper for movie makers in other countries to implement this kind of thing, instead of a lot of CGI.